Alberta pharmacists call for compensation model overhaul after 3% fee increase

Alberta's pharmacists say the province's latest funding agreement falls short, despite marking the first increase to dispensing fees in a decade.

Last month, the Alberta government signed a three-year funding deal with the Alberta Pharmacists' Association. The agreement includes a 3% increase in dispensing fees — what pharmacists can charge patients or drug insurers — the first boost since 2016. However, Momen Wali, a pharmacy manager at Griesbach I.D.A. pharmacy in Edmonton, argues the increase doesn't match inflation and that other aspects of the deal are inadequate.

Wali launched a petition two weeks ago calling for the end of a $13,000 monthly cap on clinical pharmacy services — payments for tasks like diagnosing patients, renewing medications, and administering vaccines. As of Wednesday, July 15, the petition had nearly 800 signatures.

Wali worries that the cap may push pharmacists to limit the number of patients they serve for clinical services, which would redirect people toward already-strained emergency rooms and doctors' offices. "Currently we have the problem of getting to a doctor, finding a doctor, and things like that, so we are helping them, assessing patients, giving them, renewing medications, giving them shots or injections, prescribing them. So just putting a cap itself, the idea of the cap itself doesn't make sense," Wali said.

The province's Primary and Preventative Health Services Minister Jaye Lang's office responded in a statement: "The new pharmacy funding framework will help improve services for patients while ensuring pharmacists are fairly compensated for the care they provide. It was developed through extensive collaboration between government and the Alberta Pharmacists' Association."